This article titled “Obama’s contraception rules under fire from Congress and religious groups” was written by Chris McGreal in Washington, for The Guardian on Thursday 9th February 2012 00.24 UTC

Barack Obama has come under a barrage of criticism from Congress and religious organisations over a new requirement that Catholic-run schools and hospitals provide free contraception to workers.

The issue has ballooned into a political confrontation that appears to mark out one of the battle lines for the presidential election campaign. The Republicans said the new regulation is further evidence that the president is “hostile to people of faith”. Democrats claimed that opposition to it is another front in the Republicans’ “war on women’s health”.

The newly announced regulation, which takes effect in 18 months, says that all health insurance plans provided by employers must offer birth control to women free of charge. It applies equally to Catholic-owned universities, medical establishments and charities.

As the Catholic church loudly denounced the rule, Republican opposition focused on whether a religious organisation opposed to contraception could be forced by the government to go against its principles.

Newt Gingrich, the Republican presidential candidate who is a convert to Catholicism, called the regulation an “attack on the Catholic church”. Two of the other candidates, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, were also strongly critical.

John Boehner, the Republican and Catholic speaker of the House of Representatives, called the White House move a breach of constitutional protections against government interference with religion.

“In recent days, Americans of every faith and political persuasion have mobilised in objection to a rule put forth by the Obama administration that constitutes an unambiguous attack on religious freedom in our country,” he said. “This attack by the federal government on religious freedom in our country cannot stand, and will not stand.”

Republican leaders said they would push legislation to block the requirement.

The Catholic archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, said that the government’s attempts to force the new regulation on his church had prompted outrage from people of all faiths.

“The more people learn what is at stake here, the more people are speaking up. It’s not just a Catholic issue. It’s an issue that touches all faith based communities, all religions, all organisations that draw their inspiration from their faith. I think what’s happening across the country is that the more people learn about this mandate, the more they’re saying this is wrong,” he said.

Obama also came under criticism from some Democrats, including the former Virginia governor, Timothy Kaine, who is running for the Senate and is a close ally of the president. He said that it was a political misstep.

“The White House made a good decision in including a mandate for contraception coverage in the Affordable Care Act insurance policy, but I think they made a bad decision in not allowing a broad enough religious employer exemption,” he said. “I have definitely expressed my grave concerns to the White House about that.”

The White House signalled on Wednesday that it may be prepared to reach a compromise, but there were also signs that the administration is not unhappy to fight a political battle in an election year over a social issue likely to see many independent voters, particularly women, side with the president.

Some critics said that Obama may have misstepped in alienating large numbers of Catholic voters who, while many do not follow their church’s teachings on contraception, object to the government forcing it to go against its beliefs. They also said that it would have a negative impact on voters from other religions and again fire up Christian evangelicals who are ambivalent about the prospect of Romney as the Republican presidential candidate.

Peggy Noonan, a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, wrote in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week that Obama has committed an inept faux pas that showed how removed he is from the “essential realities of America”, and that it could cost him the presidential election.

But Obama also has an interest in keeping issues such as access to contraception on the political agenda, especially if he faces Romney as the Republican presidential candidate.

When Romney was governor of Massachusetts in 2005, a new state law required all hospitals, including Catholic-run ones, to provide morning after pills to rape victims, which the Catholic church regards as a form of abortion. Romney said he opposed the law but he was also quoted at the time as saying: “My personal view, in my heart of hearts, is that people who are subject to rape should have the option of having emergency contraception or emergency contraception information.”

The White House flagged up that the issue will be a political battleground when Obama’s spokesman, Jay Carney, said that it is “ironic that Mitt Romney is criticising the president” for a regulation that is similar to the one in Massachusetts.

“The former governor of Massachusetts is an odd messenger on this given that the services that would be provided to women under this rule are the same services that are provided in Massachusetts and were covered when he was governor,” he said.

The issue is also likely to play in to concerns about Republican attitudes toward women after the furore around the politically-driven attempt by the Susan G Komen for the Cure foundation to halt grants to Planned Parenthood because it provides abortions.

The controversy may not do the damage to Catholic support for Obama that the Republicans hope.

A poll released this week by the Public Religion Research Institute showed that more than half of Catholic voters agree that employers should be required to provide their workers with healthcare insurance that covers contraception. However, only 45% supported the requirement for religiously affiliated colleges and hospitals to do so while 52% oppose it.

Carney hinted that the White House may give ground, but not much.

“We want to work with all these organisations to implement this policy in a way that is as sensitive to their concerns as possible,” he said. “But let’s be clear: We are committed, the president is committed, to ensuring that women have access to contraception without paying any extra costs, no matter where they work.”

One compromise under discussion is permitting church employers to effectively subcontract the part of health insurance covering contraception to an alternative insurer.

The administration has previously rejected another proposal that would broaden the definition of a religious employer beyond the churches themselves to include schools and hospitals.

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This article titled “Iranian attack on America and allies increasingly likely – intelligence chief” was written by Julian Borger, diplomatic editor, for The Guardian on Tuesday 31st January 2012 20.08 UTC

The head of US intelligence has warned that there is an increasing likelihood that Iran could carry out attacks in America or against US and allied targets around the world.

The warning from the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, reflects rapidly rising tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme after the US and EU announced embargoes on the Iranian oil trade in the past few weeks, Israel leaked details of its preparation for a possible conflict and both the west and Iran boosted their military readiness in the Gulf.

The US plans to send a third aircraft carrier to the region in March, while Iran’s military has threatened to block the entrance to the Gulf in the strait of Hormuz and is planning to hold naval exercises there in the next few weeks involving a host of new weapons.

Presenting his annual “worldwide threat assessment” to Congress, Clapper said an alleged plot to blow up the Saudi ambassador in Washington last year, which the US blamed on the Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, “shows that some Iranian officials – probably including the supreme leader Ali Khamenei – have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived US actions that threaten the regime.”

Clapper added: “Iran’s willingness to sponsor future attacks in the US or against our interests abroad probably will be shaped by Tehran’s evaluation of the costs it bears for the plot against the ambassador as well as Iranian leaders’ perceptions of US threats against the regime.”

Western officials say that in the past year there has been a notable increase in activity around the world by suspected members of Iran’s Quds force, the external operations arm of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which they say could reflect positioning of units capable of carrying out reprisal attacks against western and Israeli targets if Iran was itself attacked. “There have been a lot of reports recently of IRGC activity abroad,” one western official said. “There is a great deal of worry about the IRGC carrying out covert and deniable actions. But they may be overestimating how much they can hide their role. The US and others are very concerned about this.

“In this situation, there is a risk of miscalculation,” the official added, “or of rogue elements operating independently.”

US officials say that the alleged Washington bomb plot showed a new recklessness by an increasingly embattled Iranian regime. An Iranian-American was charged last October with planning to blow up the Saudi ambassador to the US while he ate at his favourite Washington restaurant, potentially killing many Americans at the same time.

The US has claimed authorisation for the attack came from the highest levels of the regime, but Clapper’s remarks marked the first time Washington has openly blamed the supreme leader.

However, a western official cautioned that there was no evidence a final decision had been taken to go ahead with the attack. “Our understanding is that this was at the stage of operational planning. The order was for everything to be put in place. There was not, as far as I know, a green light,” the official said.

In recent days, both the Thai and Azeri governments made a number of arrests of suspects allegedly linked to Iranian intelligence who are accused of planning to kill Israel diplomats and a rabbi. One possibility, western governments believe, is that the plots were intended as reprisals for a string of murders in Tehran of Iranian scientists linked to the country’s nuclear programme. Iran has blamed Mossad for the killings, an accusation that many western officials think is plausible.

After an Iranian threat last month to close the strait of Hormuz in response to oil sanctions, the US has deployed two aircraft carriers, the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Carl Vinson, in the region. A thirdis scheduled to head to the Gulf in March.

John Pike, a military analyst and the head of the GlobalSecurity.org thinktank said: “That almost never happens. They seldom even have two.”

He added that a fourth carrier, the USS John Stennis, was sailing away from the area but at a slow pace and could be back within a few days.

Tensions have been stoked further by leaked details of Israeli military preparations and cabinet deliberations on whether to strike Iran in the next few months, in an effort to set back its nuclear programme by a few years. Western officials confess they are unsure to what extent such reports represent an Israeli bluff to force urgent action by the US and its European allies, but say they do take the Israeli threats seriously.

One possibility is that Israel could launch air strikes at the height of the US presidential election campaign, on the grounds that the Obama administration would have to mute any politically risky criticism of a longstanding US ally.

Some observers believe the planned European and US oil embargoes, due to come into effect five months from now with potentially severe implications for the Iranian economy, along with a military build-up in the region, could themselves raise the risk of miscalculation on all sides.

“I don’t think they are playing Iran anything like as well as they think they are,” said Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Tehran. “The oil embargo tends to give those elements in Iran who want to have maximal defences, including nuclear defences, added weight to their arguments. Also they are poking Iran with a sharp stick but this is not accompanied by a new negotiating incentives.”

In a strikingly critical report, an influential Israeli thinktank, the Institute for National Security Studies, warned that the Israeli leadership could be rushing into a decision to attack without properly thinking of the implications. The authors said that Israeli society should “not assume that decision makers will automatically make correct choices based on a rational of an attack’s cost effectiveness”.

“Past experience has proven that such an in-depth discussion does not always take place,” the report said. It questioned whether a nuclear Iran was really an existential threat to Israel and warned that unilateral action would alienate the US and other Israeli allies.

“The image – not the first of its kind – will be of an Israel unilaterally violating the rules of the international game and launching a military campaign without legitimacy from the security council. This might increase Israel’s isolation as well contribute to its delegitimisation.”

Iran insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes. The west and Israel allege it is intended to give Iran at least the capacity to make a bomb, but Clapper conceded in his remarks : “We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.”

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This article titled “Somali Islamists ban Red Cross” was written by Clar Ni Chonghaile in Nairobi, for The Guardian on Tuesday 31st January 2012 21.49 UTC

Hundreds of thousands of Somalis could be deprived of critical food aid after Islamist rebels banned the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from areas under their control.

The move severes a critical lifeline in the south of the country where famine still threatens 250,000 people.

Rebel group al-Shabaab, which professes allegiance to al-Qaida and is hostile to foreign intervention of any kind, said it had decided to “fully terminate” the Red Cross contract, accusing the group of delivering out-of-date food.

A Red Cross spokeswoman in Nairobi had no immediate comment. The aid group had suspended food distribution to 1.1 million people in southern and central Somalia on 12 January, saying militants were blocking deliveries.

The new ban could deal a major blow to aid operations in the dangerous south of the country as the Red Cross was one of only a few international agencies still able to operate there after al-Shabaab banned 16 other groups last November.

One official, who did not wish to be named, said the ban was serious because it affected the Somali Red Crescent Society, a well-respected local organisation working with the ICRC.

He attributed the ICRC’s expulsion partly to a breakdown of communication linked to increased militariastion in the zone, where Kenyan troops are also fighting al-Shabaab.

Given the scale of the Red Cross operation, it will be difficult for local organisations or other groups still operating in the south and centre to pick up the slack if the ban is upheld. Several Islamic relief agencies still have access to southern Somalia.

Mark Bowden, the UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Somalia, said the ICRC ban risked rolling back gains made after international relief began to flow into Somalia last summer, following a declaration of famine in six regions.

“Leaving so many vulnerable Somalis without food will endanger their lives and could also result in pushing a large number of people back into famine, reversing any gains made,” he said. “We appeal to all factions in Somalia to allow humanitarian actors to reach people most in need, wherever they are.”

Six months after famine was declared in six regions, Somalia remains the world’s worst humanitarian crisis although three areas have been lifted out of famine. The UN says 4 million people still need aid, and 1.4 million have been displaced inside the country.

Delivering food and other essential relief is complicated by al-Shabaab’s hostility to foreigners and the demands they make of aid groups. Somalia is one of the most dangerous countries for aid workers, al-Shabaab, pirates and bandits have all targeted aid workers in recent months with kidnappings and shootings.

The UN has appealed for $1.5bn (£952m) to fund relief programmes this year, and officials have warned that any delay could be catastrophic. One British estimate says between 50,000 and 100,000 people died across the Horn of Africa because of last year’s drought and famine.

In a statement from its Office for Supervising the Affairs of Foreign Agencies, al-Shabab said it had inspected Red Cross warehouses and food depots and found that up to 70% of the food was “unfit for human consumption.” It said it had publicly burned around 2,000 metric tonnes of food.

“Despite being offered unrivalled access to all the regions governed by the Mujahideen in south and central Somalia, the International Committee of the Red Cross has repeatedly betrayed the trust conferred on it by the local population,” the statement said.

Al-Shabaab posted a picture on its Twitter account of burning sacks of food. It was impossible to verify the authenticity of the photograph.

The rebel group, which numbers Britons and Americans among its ranks, is fighting Somalia’s weak, western-backed Transitional Federal Government and the African Union peacekeepers that support it. It is also battling Kenyan troops in the south and Ethiopian troops in the west of the country.

Once lauded by some Somalis for restoring order in a country that has not had a functioning government in more than 20 years, al-Shabaab lost a lot of popular support during the famine amid reports that it stopped hungry people from leaving villages, diverted resources and imposed taxes on residents.

Somalia’s descent into anarchy has raised fears among its neighbours, such as Kenya, but also further afield. David Cameron is to host a conference in February on a country he described as “a failed state that threatens British interests.”

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This article titled “US commando team that killed Bin Laden swoop on Somali pirates” was written by Karen McVeigh in New York, for The Guardian on Wednesday 25th January 2012 19.39 UTC

The special forces commandos who swept into Somalia under cover of darkness to rescue two hostages, an American woman and a Danish man, were part of Seal team six, the same navy unit that killed Osama bin Laden, it has emerged.

The Seals killed nine pirates on Tuesday night before rescuing Jessica Buchanan, 32, and Poul Hagen Thisted, 60. They had been held hostage for three months after their kidnap from Galkayo, in the Galmudug region of Somalia, last October.

President Barack Obama, who authorised the mission two days ago, made no mention of it in his state of the union address to Congress on Tuesday. But he was overheard congratulating the defence secretary, Leon Panetta, on a “good job tonight” as he entered the House of Representatives chamber to give his address.

Minutes after he had finished his speech, the president was on the phone to Buchanan’s father, John, to tell him that his daughter was safe.

Obama said in a predawn statement released by the White House on Wednesday: “Thanks to the extraordinary courage and capabilities of our special operations forces, yesterday Jessica Buchanan was rescued and she is on her way home.

“As commander-in-chief, I could not be prouder of the troops who carried out this mission, and the dedicated professionals who supported their efforts. The US will not tolerate the abduction of our people, and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to bring their captors to justice,” he said.

The pair were working for the DGG, a land mine clearance unit of the Danish Refugee Council, which confirmed the hostages were unharmed and “on their way to be reunited with their families”.

A senior administration official who was not authorised to speak publicly told AP that new intelligence over the “deteriorating health” of Buchanan had prompted Obama to direct his security team to develop a rescue plan.

Mary Ann Olsen of the refugee council said Buchanan was “not that ill” and did not have to be hospitalised but did require medicine.

Olsen informed Thisted’s family of the successful military operation and said “they were very happy and incredibly relieved that it is over”. She said the freed hostages were in Djibouti and would soon be moved to a “safe haven”.

Pentagon officials have refused to discuss the details of the raid, which took place near the Somali town of Adado. But according to officials who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity, the rescue team, part of the naval special warfare development group, parachuted into the area before moving in on foot.

They arrived when the guards were asleep. A pirate who gave his name as Bile Hussein told AP the guards had been sleeping off the effects of the stimulant leaf khat, popular in Somalia, which they had been chewing for most of the evening. Hussein said he was not present, but had spoken to others who said that nine people had been killed and three were “taken away”. Officials said that the Seals had intended to capture the kidnappers, but, for reasons that have not been explained, nine were killed.

Following the operation, the rescue team and hostages flew by helicopter to Camp Lemonnier, a US base in Djibouti.

While the commandos were drawn from Seal team six, it is understood they were not the same personnel as those in the Bin Laden operation, and officials stressed that members of the other armed forces were also involved in the rescue.

When the pair were kidnapped, hundreds of Somalis demonstrated against the act in the streets.

“We are really happy with the successful release of the innocents kidnapped by evildoers,” Muhammad Sahal, an elder in Galkayo town, told AP. “They were guests who were treated brutally. That was against Islam and our culture … These men have spoiled our good customs and culture, so Somalis should fight back.”

Several hostages are still being held in Somalia, including a British tourist, two Spanish doctors seized from neighbouring Kenya, and an American journalist who was kidnapped on Saturday.

Negotiations with Somali pirates are notoriously tricky and they typically only release hostages for multimillion-pound ransoms. A British couple, Paul and Rachel Chandler, who were kidnapped from their yacht by Somali pirates in 2009 and held captive for 13 months, were finally freed in November 2010 after an undisclosed sum was paid.

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This article titled “America warns Iran that blocking oil route will ‘not be tolerated’” was written by Paul Harris in New York, for guardian.co.uk on Wednesday 28th December 2011 18.35 UTC

Tensions between the United States and Iran have dangerously ratcheted up as naval officials with America’s Fifth Fleet warned any attempt by Iran to close a strategically vital oil route through the Strait of Hormuz would “not be tolerated”.

The news heightens a sense of growing crisis in the Persian Gulf after two days of threats by senior Iranian figures that they might shut down the important trade route in response to any future international sanctions against the country’s oil exports.

“Anyone who threatens to disrupt freedom of navigation in an international strait is clearly outside the community of nations: any disruption will not be tolerated,” US Fifth Fleet spokeswoman Lt Rebecca Rebarich told the Associated Press. She added that the US Navy was “…always ready to counter malevolent actions to ensure freedom of navigation.”

The Fifth Fleet is based in the tiny Gulf state of Bahrain and commands a huge flotilla of American naval might, including air craft carriers.

That US response came shortly after the head of the Iranian Navy warned that the country could easily close the Strait of Hormuz if it desired to do so.

“Closing the Strait of Hormuz is very easy for Iranian naval forces… it will be easier than drinking a glass of water,” Admiral Habibollah Sayyari told the state-run Press TV channel. However, he did add that Iran currently had no plans to carry out the act.

But the war of words theoretically raises the prospect of a naval conflict in the Gulf between Iran and the United States. Sayyari’s statement came just a day after Iran’s vice president, Mohamed Reza Rahimi, also threatened to use force to shut the waterway and cut off a flow of oil that many see as vital for the world economy.

They also come as Iran is conducting large naval exercises in the region in what many analysts see as a show of force. The war games stretch over a large area of the Gulf, including the Strait of Hormuz, and could easily bring Iranian ships and submarines into close proximity with US forces.

Iran is reacting to what it says is an unfair campaign to punish it for its domestic nuclear programme, which it claims is peaceful but which many believe is actually aimed at creating a weapon.

The US Congress has passed a bill banning dealings with the Iran Central Bank which President Barack Obama has said he will sign. If that happens the new US law could hit foreign companies that deal with Iran’s central bank in order to buy oil, striking a blow at a commodity that makes up about 80% of its foreign revenues and is vital for the functioning of the Iranian economy.

The oil markets are already jittery about the latest developments. As the oil price ticked up in the face of the bellicose comments Saudi officials said that they would release more oil in the event of any crisis to make up for a loss of Iranian crude. That effort seemed to help calm oil traders’ fears.

The current rising tensions are also merely the latest in a series of serious spats between Iran and Western nations. Earlier this month Iran captured an unmanned US spy drone, broadcasting pictures of the downed craft that created headlines around the world and represented a major intelligence coup. In November violent crowds in Tehran stormed the British embassy and ransacked offices and residences. That led to the closure of the embassy and the expulsion of Iranian diplomats from Britain.

Iranian media has carried detailed reports of how it might act to close the Strait, deploying a mix of ships, submarines, missiles and torpedoes. Few experts believe that any Iranian force could stand up to the US military but any form of armed conflict would likely trigger a global diplomatic and economic crisis.

It would also play out against a backdrop of concerted Israeli efforts to warn against Iran’s nuclear programme, which the nation believes represents a threat to its existence. Isreali military and political figures have
consistently threatened that armed strikes against Iran might be needed to stop the development of an Iranian nuclear bomb.

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This article titled “Stasi files row as Britain refuses to return documents to Germany” was written by Helen Pidd in Berlin, for guardian.co.uk on Wednesday 28th December 2011 22.04 UTC

Britain has been accused of “sheltering communists” after refusing to hand over a cache of Stasi files revealing the names of British spies who worked for the East German secret intelligence agency during the cold war.

The cache belongs to a set of mysterious microfilm images, known as the Rosenholz (Rosewood) records, that contain 280,000 files giving basic information on employees of the foreign intelligence arm of the former GDR.

The records were obtained by the CIA in murky circumstances shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. American agents analysed the data before distributing relevant portions to countries in which the Stasi were active.

A swath of files relating to Stasi activity in the UK were given to MI5 by the Americans in the 1990s. Now Germany wants the files back, to add to its extensive archives on the GDR’s ministry for state security, commonly known as the Stasi.

If the files are returned to Germany, they will be made available, unredacted, to scholars and historians. That means that British Stasi sympathisers and spies could be outed for the first time.

Today, Germany only has those sections of the Rosenholz discs pertaining to activity in former West Germany – though the governments of Norway, Denmark and Sweden recently indicated they were ready to hand over the Rosenholz files they were given by the CIA more than 10 years ago.

Since the return to Berlin of the West German portion of the Rosenholz files in 2003, a number of public figures have been outed as Stasi collaborators, most recently a priest who allegedly spied on Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI .

“We need access to these British files in order to understand the cold war, which was a war fought by secret intelligence operatives all over the world,” said Helmut Müller-Enbergs, one of the world’s leading scholars on the Stasi.

With fellow academics, he is demanding that Britain return the Rosenholz files to the Stasi archives in Berlin. “Given that the Brits have long been considered world class in intelligence gathering, it is especially important for us to understand how the Stasi was able to operate in the UK.”

“The UK is not a country known for sheltering communists, so why then will they not reveal to us who in Great Britain was working for a communist regime?” said Müller-Enbergs, a researcher at the Stasi archives in Berlin (BStU) and visiting professor at Gotland University, Sweden.

Roland Jahn, the federal commissioner for the Stasi archive, said: “These records could offer an important complement to those Stasi files we already have, and thus make an important contribution to the reappraisal of the role of East German state security in Europe.”

The Stasi archives already encompass 69 miles (111km) of files, including 39m index cards, 1.4m photos and 34,000 video and audio recordings. But the Rosenholz files are key because of the systematic and deliberate destruction of most of the records relating to a Stasi division known as the Hauptverwaltung A (HVA), which was responsible for running an extensive network of spies in the west.

When the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, a high level committee agreed (with the blessing of the West German chancellor Helmut Kohl) that the HVA archives should be destroyed – a decision described by Die Zeit recently as one of the worst mistakes made during reunification .

The microfilmed files obtained by the CIA – in what the Americans described as a “clandestine operation” which may have included a pay-off to a rogue KGB agent – are the key because they contain copies of the card indexes of the HVA, listing the real names of all the agents, informers and targets of the Stasi’s foreign operations.

Put together with files already in the BStU’s possession, they allow scholars to build up a picture of who the spies were, who they were spying on and how the Stasi carried out missions abroad.

Herbert Ziehm, deputy head of the disclosure/information division of the BStU, said it would be “lovely” for Britain to return their portion of the Rosenholz files. “Then we would be able to see exactly who was spying for the Stasi in Britain – from other sources we already know what information they were delivering, but this would enable us to work out who they were,” he said.

Ziehm was part of the negotiating team which persuaded the US to hand over the Rosenholz discs to Germany’s Stasi archives in 2003.

Even just getting those Rosenholz files pertaining to east and west was a drawn-out process, he said: “The negotiations took a number of years. “The Americans were reluctant to co-operate for some time.One CIA agent put it like this: when you get some loot from a mission, you don’t share it.” Ziehm believes the CIA obtained the files in 1992 “at the very latest”.

Ziehm said the files are important in puzzling how the Stasi operated abroad. “We already had three-quarters of the information – Rosenholz gives us the opportunity to gain the missing quarter,” he said.

Thomas Wegener Friis, an associate professor at the Centre for Cold War Studies at the University of Southern Denmark, said the return of the files was about transparency rather than naming and shaming.

“It’s not just a question of outing people – though we should not be shy to name those who worked for the Stasi abroad,” he said. “More important is being able to understand how intelligence agencies worked on an operational level during the Cold War. It will allow us to learn lessons for the future.”Asked by the Guardian why Britain refused to hand over the Rosenholz files, the Foreign Office, which handles press requests for MI5 and MI6, said: “We don’t comment on intelligence matters.”

No Briton has ever been prosecuted in the UK for spying for East Germany, according to Anthony Glees, professor of politics at the University of Buckingham and director of its Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies.

In 1999, the then home secretary, Jack Straw, told MPs that MI5 was investigating more than 100 Britons suspected of having been Stasi agents.

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This article titled “China imposes tariff on US car imports” was written by Graeme Wearden, for The Guardian on Thursday 15th December 2011 01.39 UTC

The tension between America and China over international trade escalated on Wednesday when Beijing imposed additional duties on cars imported from the United States.

China’s commerce ministry accused America’s car industry of “dumping and subsidising”, thereby causing substantial damage to China’s domestic car industry. From Thursday, levies will be charged on larger-engined cars from several manufacturers, some being European firms with factories in the US.

General Motors faces the greatest impact, almost 22% extra on some sports utility vehicles (SUVs) and other cars with engine capacities above 2.5 litres. Chrysler faces a 15% penalty, while a 2% levy will be imposed on BMW, whose US plants make many of the cars it exports to China.

Existing taxes and duties already push up the cost of US imports by 25%, and the new levies make it even more expensive for Chinese consumers to buy American. The move was swiftly attacked in the US. Carl Levin, the Democratic senator for Michigan (which includes the motor city of Detroit), called it an “unjustified” attempt to circumvent international trade laws. “Instead of ending its unlawful trade practices, China is choosing to take further steps that are unauthorised by world trade rules,” he claimed.”The livelihoods of American families and the integrity of global trade law are at stake.”

GM says the levies will have little immediate impact, as it mostly exports lower-power cars to China. Analysts, though, said the decision underlined China’s determination to protect its car industry.

“The move shows that China is always capable of intervening politically in its markets,” Juergen Pieper of Bankhaus Metzler, the German investment bank, told Bloomberg. Georges Dieng, a Paris-based analyst with Natixis Securities, said the levies had been set to “inflict pain on the Americans, above all”. Shares in General Motors fell by over 3%, while BMW’s shares slipped 5%.

China and the US have peppered each other with legal actions and tariffs over the past few years.

Earlier this month, the US International Trade Commission ruled against China’s solar-power industry after an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation. Last week, the US pledged to take China’s anti-dumping measures against American poultry imports to the World Trade Organisation.

Debbie Stabenow, the junior senator for Michigan, urged the US government to take China’s car levies to the WTO as well. “China relentlessly breaks international trade rules, and seeks to gain an anti-competitive advantage over our companies and workers. America must be equally relentless in fighting back,” she said.

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This article titled “Al-Qaida offshoot hopes to turn Africa’s Sahel region into a ‘new Somalia’” was written by Simon Tisdall, for The Guardian on Thursday 8th December 2011 19.02 UTC

An offshoot of al-Qaida is working to turn the whole of Africa’s Sahel region into a “new Somalia” and terrorist bases there pose a growing threat to European and pan-African security, a panel of experts has warned.

Jerome Spinoza, head of the Africa bureau in the French ministry of defence, said the sub-Saharan Sahel area, up to 1,000km wide and stretching from the Atlantic in the west to the Red Sea in the east, presented challenges that western policymakers ignored at their peril.

“Instability is on the rise,” Spinoza told the Chatham House thinktank in London on Thursday. “Without a meaningful policy, the area could constitute a lasting safe haven for jihadists.”

Robert Fowler, a former UN special envoy to Niger and Canadian diplomat who was kidnapped and held hostage for four months in 2008-9 by al-Qaida in the Maghreb (AQIM), said the 31-strong group of captors was well-disciplined and wholly concentrated on its aim of creating an Islamic caliphate embracing the Muslim lands of Africa and the Middle East.

“These men are highly motivated and totally ascetic,” Fowler said. “These guys have no needs. They are dressed in rags. They have a bag of rice and a belt of ammunition and that’s it. I was held in 23 different locations in about 70 days. They are organised. They can break camp in under four minutes.”

Fowler continued: “This was the most focused group of young men I have ever encountered in my life. They are totally committed to jihad. They said to me, ‘We fight to die, you fight to go home to your wife and kids. Guess who will win?’ Even if it takes 200 years … They want to turn the Sahel into a new Somalia.”

Fowler said the terrorist threat to Europe’s southern flank had risen after advanced weapons were plundered during the collapse of the Gaddafi regime in Libya. “They (AQIM) are now equipped with enormous amounts of Libyan weapons and I mean sophisticated weapons such as 20,000 [shoulder-mounted] SA-24 missiles, heavy mortars, heavy artillery and thousands of anti-tank mines … The UN has demanded they be handed over. Well, good luck with that.”

The Sahel region embraces southern Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, southern Algeria, Niger, northern Nigeria, Chad, South Sudan and Darfur in western Sudan, northern Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Spinoza said a host of critical issues faced the region going beyond terrorism. They included recurring rebellions by nomadic Tuareg tribesmen, some of whom were armed by and fought as mercenaries for Gaddafi in this year’s Libya conflict, cocaine trafficking to Europe from the west African coast, and people and arms smuggling.

The region was also confronted by rapid population growth, weak and ineffective governance, inter-state tensions, poor access to education and employment, and increasingly acute food supply problems exacerbated by climate change and the southward advance of the Sahara desert, he said.

AQIM was exploiting the resulting instability, he suggested, spreading its influence south from Algeria and raising the prospect of transcontinental link-ups with Boko Haram militant Islamists in Nigeria and al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Spinoza called for a joined-up approach by the international community, suggesting interested countries including France, the Netherlands and the US needed to coordinate their policies with regional and local players. “The EU’s strategy for security involves development, rule of law and (non-military) security but the EU needs to be more concrete,” he said.

Speaking this week, Kristalina Georgieva, the EU commissioner for humanitarian aid crisis response, said the Sahel was likely to experience severe food shortages next year because of erratic rainfall and localised dry spells.

Seven million people were already facing shortages in Niger, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria and Burkina Faso, she said. Current trends pointed to a massive problem of food availability next year.

The European commission last month increased humanitarian funding to the Sahel by €10m (£8.5m) to a total of €55m this year. Niger and Mauritania have already declared a crisis, prepared national action plans, and appealed for international help.

At the eastern end of the Sahel arc, 13 million people remained in need of emergency help and the crisis there was expected to last until the spring and perhaps the summer of 2012, Georgieva said.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

This article titled “Virginia Tech put on lockdown after two shot dead on campus” was written by Adam Gabbatt, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 8th December 2011 22.30 UTC

2.25pm ET: A gunman is at large after two people were killed at Virginia Tech this afternoon, the university said in a statement.

Virginia Tech said the “status of the shooter is unknown” but has warned people on campus to stay inside.

One of the dead men is a police officer who was shot during a “routine traffic stop”, the university said.

“Shortly after noon today, a Virginia Tech police officer stopped a vehicle on campus during a routine traffic stop in the Coliseum parking lot near McComas Hall,” a statement posted to Virginia Tech’s website said.

“During the traffic stop the officer was shot and killed. There were witnesses to this shooting.

Witnesses reported to police the shooter fled on foot heading toward the Cage, a parking lot near Duck Pond Drive. At that parking lot, a second person was found. That person is also deceased.”

The statement added: “The status of the shooter is unknown. The campus community should continue to shelter in place and visitors should not come to campus.”

Virgina Tech said several law enforcement agencies have responded. Virginia state police are leading the investigation.

A spokeswoman for Virgina Tech confirmed the statement on the website was correct. She was unable to provide further information.

The Collegiate Times, the student newspaper for Virginia Tech, was evacuated from its office as police pursued the gunman. The paper’s Twitter feed reported police activity around the campus’s Squires Student Center.

AP reported that the shooting came the same day that Virginia Tech, which has an enrollment of about 30,000, was appealing a $55,000 fine by the U.S. Education Department in connection with the university’s response to the 2007 rampage, when a student gunman killed 32 students and faculty and then shot himself.

2.40pm ET:The Collegiate Times reports that the police SWAT team has left Squires Student Center after finding “no suspicious persons inside”. The Guardian cannot confirm this.

The Washington Post has a map of the university campus which shows where the deceased were found this afternoon. The police officer was shot and killed at the Coliseum parking lot. A second victim was found at the Cage parking lot, according to the Post.

2.50pm ET: Unconfirmed reports are suggesting police are hunting a burgundy Mitsibushi in connection with the shooting at Virginia Tech.

Reddit user enginerdy says they are listening into a police scanner feed, and are providing a rolling commentary.

Enginerdy has ascertained from the feed that police have cleared Rector Field House and Johnson Hall. The Guardian cannot confirm his account.

3.10pm ET: Exams scheduled to take place at Virginia Tech tomorrow have been postponed, according to the university’s Twitter feed.

Virginia Tech said a media briefing would be held at Schott Media Room in Lane Stadium at 4.30pm.

3.17pm ET: An audio stream reportedly picking up communications from police leading the operation at Virginia Tech is available on radioreference.com here.

Just a few minutes ago officers could be heard discussing a possible suspect – which can be heard in this recording. One officer says:

My partner just talked to a subject advised there was a 10-100 walking in the field behind the old [inaudible] sewage plant, wearing a hoody. Possible suspect.

A response comes through: “Dispatch unit to old sewage plant, see if that’s it.”

3.23pm ET: Flickr user daniellinphoto has uploaded photographs from Virgina Tech this afternoon.

Officers can be seen carrying weapons at the campus.

3.27pm ET: The latest update from Virginia Tech’s twitter feed says:

3.53pm ET: In this second audio grab from the police scanner feed a report comes in of a suspicious male having been spotted two miles west of Virginia Tech.

We have a 10-100 at Heather Drive at Tall Oaks, skinny white male [inaudible] shirt wearing prescription glasses and a maroon avalanche. No tag available, unknown direction of travel, acting suspicious.

There is a Heather Drive/ Tall Oaks Drive intersection two miles west of the university campus.

4.05pm ET: On Reddit, enginerdy is continuing to post updates he says are gleamed from a police scanner in the area. The posts make interesting reading and give a sense of a multi-pronged police operation in the area. Police appear to be tracking various leads. There are multiple reports of a suspect wearing a “maroon hoody”.

4.15pm: The Republican governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, has issued a statement on the shootings at Virginia Tech this afternoon. He says:

I am deeply saddened by today’s news of another tragedy affecting the Virginia Tech community. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those impacted by these shootings.

Since this news first broke we have been monitoring the situation closely and I have made available all requested state resources to Virginia Tech, including the Virginia State Police. I have also spoken to Virginia Tech President Charles Steger earlier this afternoon.

I want to thank the multiple law enforcement agencies and all of the officers for their speedy response and focus during this difficult time. I also want to commend Virginia Tech leadership, students, faculty and staff who cooperated to efficiently respond to this emergency.

While we will await the completion of the initial investigation of this incident before commenting further, I want to again offer our continued support to all of those impacted by this tragedy. Virginia Tech is a university of great resolve, and I have no doubt that the students, alumni and faculty of this proud institution will emerge from this sad day stronger and more united than ever before. There will continue to be needs in the days ahead as we move forward from this situation and I will ensure that those needs are met completely and fully by the commonwealth.

4.25pm: Law enforcement officials believe the second casualty at Virginia Tech University was the man who shot and killed the campus police officer, according to NBC news.

Law enforcement officials tell NBC News they believe the second shooting victim at Virginia Tech University was the man who shot and killed the campus police officer.

NBC’s Pete Williams reports that authorities say they’re awaiting final confirmation but that they believe the campuswide alert for a gunman at large will soon be canceled.

4.30pm: A weapon has been recovered at the where one of the two dead men were shot, local news station WDBJ7 reports.

4.33pm: Virginia Tech has just announced on Twitter that police on the campus have declared the emergency over.

4.41pm: The Virginia Tech press conference is about to start. You can watch it on the live stream above. You may need to refresh this page.

4.48pm: Larry Hincker, associate vice president for university relations at Virginia Tech, confirms the lockdown at the campus has been lifted.

Charles Steger, president of Virginia Tech, describes a “wanton act of violence”, where a police officer was murdered during a routine traffic stop”.

He says: “Our hearts are broken again, for the family of our police officer, and we extend our deepest sympathy and condolences.”

4.49pm: Gene Deisinger, deputy chief of Virginia Tech police department, says police received a report saying a suspect had been seen approaching an officer and fired a gun. Police responded and found an officer “who had received a gunshot”, he says.

At about 1pm an officer saw a suspicious person. When he approached the man, he found him dead from a gunshot wound.

This afternoon police have been following up leads from members of the public.

4.52pm: Sergeant Bob Carpentieri of Virginia state police is speaking now. The dead officer served on the force for four years.

After the officer was found another body, of a white man, was found near the duck pond on Virginia Tech campus, he says. He had also suffered a gunshot wound.

A gun was also found, but Carpentieri will not discuss the weapon or its calibre. Carpentieri says there have been no further shootings since the two bodies were found.

4.57pm: Carpentieri will not confirm whether police believe the second dead person to be the shooter, and says he does not have the identity of the second dead person.

Deisinger clarifies the information on the second deceased man. Witnesses at the scene of the first shooting reported that the gunman had fled toward the “cage lot”. A dead man was later found there.

Asked if the second dead man was the same person who was initially the subject of the traffic stop, Carpentieri says no. The shooter walked up to the officer while he was dealing with the incident.

5.17pm: The press conference is drawing to a close. The only other pertinent piece of information to have emerged is that police had been investigating an armed robbery in nearby Radford yesterday. This WSLS report says the robbery happened at 11.25am in Calhoun Street, at the offices of a real estate agent.

The suspect demanded the keys to an employee’s car when he left, described as a 2011 white Mercedes SUV with Virginia tag KLF-6778.

5.30pm: Here’s a summary of events at Virginia Tech today.

Two people have been killed at Virginia Tech university, leading to a manhunt and campus lockdown. A police officer was shot dead just after midday during a routine traffic stop and a dead man was found with a weapon nearby.

The shootings took place at the same college that was the scene of the deadliest shooting incident by a single gunman in US history. In April 2007 incident, 32 people died when a student, Seung-Hui Cho, went on the rampage. He was able to buy guns despite having been diagnosed with mental health problems.

In today’s incident, the dead officer, who had served with Virginia police for four years but has not yet been named, was conducting the traffic stop when witnesses saw another man approach and shoot him. Police said the gunman was not connected with the traffic stop. Witnesses saw the shooter run in the direction of the Cage parking lot.

The gunman was later found dead. About 45 minutes after the first shooting, the police spotted a man acting suspiciously in the Cage parking lot. By the time officers approached him, he was dead from a gunshot wound. The police said they did not shoot him.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

This article titled “Gay rights must be criterion for US aid allocations, instructs Obama” was written by Karen McVeigh in New York, for The Guardian on Wednesday 7th December 2011 00.03 UTC

President Barack Obama has instructed officials to consider how countries treat their gay and lesbian populations when making decisions about allocating foreign aid.

In the first US government strategy to deal with human rights abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) citizens abroad, a presidential memorandum issued on Tuesday instructs agencies to use foreign aid to promote such rights.

Gay and lesbian lobby groups have reported an increase in human rights abuses across Africa and parts of the Middle East.

Obama is among international leaders who have condemned a bill proposed in Uganda that would make some homosexual acts a crime punishable by death. The Ugandan parliament recently reopened debate on the bill, which had been abandoned after an international outcry.

In a speech in Geneva to mark international human rights day, secretary of state Hillary Clinton backed the presidential directive. “I am not saying that gay people can’t or don’t commit crimes,” she said. “They can and they do. Just like straight people. And when they do, they should be held accountable. But it should never be a crime to be gay.”

Clinton has called for greater protection of sexual minorities and the safety of those seeking asylum. In June, she welcomed a UN resolution on equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation.

Clinton compared the struggle for gay equality to difficult passages toward women’s rights and racial equality, and said a country’s cultural or religious traditions are no excuse for discrimination. “Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights,” she said.

Among US measures, the state department will lead a group to direct agencies to provide a “swift and meaningful” response to serious incidents that threaten the human rights of LGBT people abroad, Obama said. Agencies are directed to combat the criminalisation of LGBT status or conduct abroad, protect vulnerable LGBT refugees and asylum seekers, and engage international organisations in the fight against such discrimination. Agencies are instructed to report on progress within 180 days.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney argued gay rights should not be a test for US engagement abroad. “I will be looking at foreign aid, whether it meets our national security interests and, number two, whether these nations are friends of ours and are willing to be friendly with us in ways when it matters the most,” he said on Fox News.

The Texas governor, Rick Perry, went further. “Promoting special rights for gays in foreign countries is not in America’s interests and not worth a dime of taxpayers’ money,” a Perry campaign statement said.

It was unclear whether those countries that target and discriminate against gay and lesbians would have their funding cut.

The latest state department report cites countries including US allies such as Saudi Arabia as having human rights issues over treatment of homosexuals.

The UN Human Rights Council passed the resolution on equal rights for all by a narrow margin, despite strong objections from African and Muslim countries.

While the US, the EU and Brazil backed the effort, the move drew strong criticism from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Pakistan, among others.

In October this year, USAID made an announcement that it “strongly encourages” businesses contracted with USAID to go beyond mandatory non-discrimination protections, to prohibit job bias for LGBT employees and other workers.

Among the top 10 countries granted economic and military assistance from the US, according to USAID, are Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Egypt Pakistan, Sudan, West Bank/Gaza, Ethiopia, Kenya and Columbia.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010